Music as brand, with reference to the film music of John Towner Williams (with particular emphasis on Williams's 'Main Title' for Star Wars)

Abstract:

In contemporary consumer culture, branding is the term given to the creation
of an image or text (visual, aural, textural or multi-sensory) intended to
represent a commodity or product sold by a producer or service provider. This
product’s commercial viability depends largely on the way it is presented (via
branding) to its target market.
The aim of this research report is to show that music used consciously as a
branding medium, with special reference to film music (in its commodified
form), has become a brand in itself, as opposed to merely a component of a
multi-modal commercial product. Through analyses of a central film music
theme from Star Wars: Episode IV, composed by John Williams, I aim to
identify what I will term `audio-branding techniques’ within the music, thereby
showing how music has come to be regarded as a brand. The audio branding
techniques will relate directly to the four levels of analysis that I propose to
conduct. The nature of branding implies the presence of three entities in the
cultural and commercial `transaction’ that takes place: namely, the service
provider (creator), the product (commodity) and the target market (consumer).
I intend to argue that, as a result of powerful creative collaborations between
John Williams and his various directors (not to mention his own unique talent),
this composer’s film music has increasingly become an audio brand which is
almost commensurate with the brand status of the film itself. Williams’s ability
to create a symbiotic relationship between a music brand and that of a film
has set him apart from most other contemporary art and commercial
composers. As a result, it is not simply the actors, directors and producers
associated with a movie that induce one to buy tickets to see it, but Williams’s
independent audio branding style as well. I thus aim to prove that his film
music is an audio brand independent of, and yet also allied with, other brands.

This research-report presents a theoretical exploration of musical encoding which
has its basis in general semiotic theory. By examining what this reveals about the
problematic and mysterious issue of music’s meaning, I ...

South Africa is engaged in social redress and Education at all levels reflects this commitment.
The period of transition from the apartheid policy of the National Party, (1948 – 1994), to the
democratic policy of the ...

The Development Works Report (2004:28) described the role played by live music
performers in the sub-Saharan region as a military force, a ‘musician corps’ of foot soldiers
out in the field of the music industry. Musicians ...